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ESO 32/08 - Associated Images

25 September 2008
For Immediate Release

The Wild, Hidden Cousin of SN 1987A

Powerful nearby supernova caught by web of telescopes

This composite image shows the central regions of the nearby Circinus galaxy, located about 12 million light years away. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in blue and data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space telescope is shown in yellow ("I-band"), red (hydrogen emission), cyan ("V-band") and light blue (oxygen emission). The blue source near the lower right hand corner of the image is the supernova SN 1996cr, that has finally been identified over a decade after it exploded. The supernova was first singled out in 2001 as a bright, variable object in a Chandra image, but it was not confirmed as a supernova until years later, when clues from a spectrum obtained with ESO's Very Large Telescope led the team to start the real detective work of searching through data from 18 different telescopes, both ground- and space-based, nearly all of which was in the archives. SN 1996cr is one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years. Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/Columbia/F.Bauer et al); Visible light (NASA/STScI/UMD/A.Wilson et al.)

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Colour image of the Circinus Galaxy based on ESO SuSI New Technology Telescope data obtained in April 1993, that is, about three years before the supernova exploded. The observations were made through different narrow-band filters (ionised hydrogen, ionised oxygen, and ionised iron). Credit: ESO.